


Shake it Out

by midoriverte



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Bullying, Hideweek, High School, M/M, Pre-Canon, emotional abuse/emotional manipulation, hide week day 5: ヒデ, some OCs because they have classmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2018-11-12 07:17:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11156940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midoriverte/pseuds/midoriverte
Summary: Hide doesn't want to think about Kaneki having a crush on a classmate.  He doesn't want to start planning for his future. He just wants to enjoy spending time with his best friend like he always has.Of course, things never work out the way he wants them to.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is technically for Hide Week but it got a lot longer than I expected so it's going to be a multichapter fic. The parts that are more related to the prompt come a bit later into the story lol.
> 
> beta'd as always by Sondeneige

Hide was absently drawing in the margins of his notes in class. He had stopped paying attention to the teacher long ago, though it was not because he was bored by the subject (though he was- math came easily to him), it was because he had been watching the antics of Kaneki and one of their female classmates, Nakamura, for what was close to twenty minutes now. 

 

He tapped his pencil on his page in irritation until the girl sitting behind him shot him a sharp look and he smiled apologetically and stopped. 

 

Kaneki had a  _ thing _ for Nakamura, that much was obvious to probably anyone who bothered to pay attention, much less Hide, who was around him almost all the time. Kaneki kept shooting her furtive looks (he sat beside her, Hide was stuck behind them), and then quickly looking away every time she looked like she might catch him, blushing furiously and looking at his notes every time. 

 

He resisted the urge to start tapping his pencil against the page again. 

 

Nakamura was not someone Hide would have normally paid much attention to, to be honest. She was what one might describe as so pretty it was almost boring. Her long, jet-black hair cascaded down her back, she had a nice smile, she was friendly and book-smart but also fairly shy and blushed easily. 

 

She was probably perfect for Kaneki.

 

The thought pissed Hide off. 

 

In terms of the always brutal ranking system of class popularity she was probably a bit above Kaneki (which was not high), she was friendly with her classmates and they were friendly with her, though he had a suspicion that at least some of them did not like her out of jealousy for her good looks or her good grades. 

 

That part, at least, did not particularly concern Hide. 

 

“Kaneki-kun,” the teacher said suddenly, snapping Hide out of his bitter reverie. 

 

Kaneki jumped a little at the mention of his name. 

 

“Y-yes?” He answered. The class giggled at his obvious discomfort. 

 

Hide clenched his fist so hard around his pencil that it was a wonder it didn’t break. 

 

“Could you answer question three?” The teacher asked. She was smirking in such a way that told Hide that she knew Kaneki couldn’t answer because he hadn’t been paying proper attention. 

 

_ This was how adults play with children _ .

 

“I, uh,” Kaneki stammered, going red and clearly unable to answer. 

 

“Anyone else?” The teacher asked, still with that smirk on her face. 

 

Hide threw his hand up. 

 

“I think I can answer!” He said brightly

 

The teacher nodded at him. Hide made sure to look her dead in the eye as he said:

 

“Seven.”

 

The class burst out laughing at this. The equation she was trying to get them to solve took up nearly half the board and was, to put it simply, very clearly not answerable with just “seven”. 

 

“Nagachika-kun, do try to take this seriously,” the teacher sighed. Hide was sure any other student would have gotten detention for that one, but for whatever reason this teacher had a soft spot for him.

 

The thought didn’t make him happy, but if he could use his advantage to help Kaneki out, then he would. 

 

“Can anyone  _ actually _ answer this question?” The teacher asked in a tired voice. 

 

The class sat frozen, clearly this math was going over everyone’s heads, and no one was willing to put themselves on the spot. 

 

Nakamura shyly raised her hand. 

 

Of course, she answered the question properly, and she smiled with some pride as the teacher praised her work, at least until she said:

 

“You could all try following Nakamura-san’s example.”

 

_ Oh dear _ , Hide thought.  _ That’s certainly not going to help out her standing in the class _ . 

 

Indeed, he could already see people glaring at her out of the corner of his eye, and he watched as she shrunk in her seat a bit. 

 

Hide really did pity her, though his sympathy for her was dampened somewhat by seeing Kaneki’s look of open concern for her. 

“It’s almost time for lunch,” their teacher went on. “So I want to remind you that your future plan forms are due soon, please remember to talk about it with your parent or guardian and get their signatures.”

 

Hide had to fight to keep from groaning out loud. He had very deliberately  _ not _ been thinking about his future plans.

 

At lunch, Hide immediately jumped up and half-ran to Kaneki’s desk.

 

“Wanna go eat on the roof before the third-years take it?” Hide asked. 

 

“Actually,” Kaneki said, shooting a furtive look to the side to see Nakamura (even though Hide had quite purposefully stood between their desks). “I think I’d rather stay here for lunch, if that’s okay.”

 

_ Seriously?  _ Hide felt his smile falter for just an instant before he hitched it back on. “Well, all right then,” Hide said, in what he hoped was a convincingly cheery voice. He grabbed the chair from the desk in front of him and straddled it so he was facing Kaneki. 

 

Kaneki rolled his eyes and brought out a piece of melon bread from his bag.

 

“Nice lunch,” Hide commented coolly. 

 

“I could say the same to you,” Kaneki raised his eyebrows at the empty desk in front of Hide. 

 

Hide raised his hands in surrender. “Fair enough.”

 

Kaneki ripped off a piece, “Want some?”

 

“Only if you feed it to me by hand, like a maiden serving a roman emperor grapes while he’s draped on a sofa.”

 

Kaneki ate the piece he ripped off. 

 

Hide grinned and ripped a piece off the bread himself, Kaneki raised no objections. 

 

“Can you believe we have to hand in our future plans already?” Hide groaned. “We’re only second-years!”

 

“We’re  _ already _ second years,” Kaneki corrected. “It’s important to know where you want to go so you can start preparing for exams.”

 

Hide waved his hand dismissively, he had heard it a thousand times, and the thought of his future made him feel like a series of powerful waves were crashing over his head.

 

“What are you planning on-,” Hide started asking, but he cut himself off furiously when he saw that Kaneki was neither looking at nor paying attention to him. Instead, he was looking at Nakamura again. 

 

This time, at least, Hide could see why. Nakamura was staring determinedly at her lap, not eating anything, with tears in her eyes. 

 

“Is everything alright, Nakamura-san?” Kaneki asked, flushing a bit as he did so. 

 

“O-oh! I’m fine,” she said a little too quickly, brushing tears from her eyes. “It’s just, uh, I think someone took my lunch,” she finished in a small voice. 

 

Neither of the boys bothered to say “that’s terrible” or “who would do something like that”. There didn’t have to be a particular reason to it. She stuck out, so she needed to be hammered down. 

 

Still, Hide was intrigued by a good mystery. 

 

While Kaneki sat there looking concerned, Hide started thinking out loud. 

 

“It had to have been this morning, there’s no way they could have done it now without any of us seeing it…” If it had happened later, Hide might have blamed the teacher’s praise of her as the catalyst, but clearly this problem had been brewing for a while. 

 

“No one would be stupid enough to keep it in here when everyone’s eating,” he mumbled as Kaneki and Nakamura stared at him. 

 

He finally stood up abruptly. 

 

“Be right back!” He said cheerfully as he raced out the door of the classroom. 

 

He thought he heard the two of them protest at his sudden departure, but he was already out the door. 

 

It took him hardly any time at all before he was up on the roof (which was, he reflected in annoyance, where he had wanted to go anyway). 

 

He approached the gang of boys laughing about something stupid on the roof. Sure enough, one of the boys was holding a bento box with a lunch so lovingly prepared that Hide was sure it was beyond his capabilities. 

 

“Pretty fancy lunch you’ve got for a guy without a girlfriend, Kinomoto,” he remarked dryly. 

 

The boys stopped laughing abruptly at that. Okay, maybe that was  _ not _ the greatest opening line. In Hide’s defence, he was out of patience for today. 

 

Judging from the way they were looking at him, he was going to need a lot of defence. 

 

“What the fuck is it to you, Nagachika?”

 

The short answer? Nothing. The long answer: it was something to Kaneki. 

 

“Nakamura’s lunch went missing.”

 

“So?”

 

“So, that is definitely her lunch,” Hide was trying to keep his tone bright and non-confrontational, but really, did this guy think he was an idiot?

 

“Maybe I’m dating Nakamura,” Kinomoto said with a sly grin, as his sycophantic gang renewed their idiotic chortling.

 

Hide raised an eyebrow. “I somehow seriously doubt that.”

 

That certainly knocked the smiles off their faces. 

 

“Whatever, man,” Kinomoto snapped. “Go eat the melon bread  _ your _ girlfriend was feeding you and mind your own business.”

 

Hide bristled. But, instead of losing his cool completely and just punching him in the face (which Hide so desperately wanted to do), he thought fast, and, while Kinomoto and his gang were distracted by the cleverness of his joke, Hide rushed forward, snatched the bento out of his hands, and ran faster than he believed himself capable of down the stairs while they were too stunned to do anything but shout “What the fuck-”.

 

He would have to watch his back later, he thought as he returned to a normal walking pace in the hallway so as not to attract a teacher’s attention. He was still in utter disbelief that such an awful plan of action worked, but aside from losing some rice in his run and putting a huge target on his back from the biggest gang of bullies in their year, he considered this a victory. 

 

He arrived back in the classroom, a little breathless, and put the box down on the desk in front of a bewildered Nakamura and Kaneki. 

 

“Kinomoto,” he said simply, in answer to their inquiring looks. 

“How did you know?” Kaneki asked. 

 

“He’s the biggest asshole in the class,” Hide said with a shrug, sitting back down on his chair. “He ate like, two thirds of it, but there’s still the octo-wieners left, those are the best part!” He said cheerfully to Nakamura. 

 

“They are not called  _ octo-wieners _ , Hide,” Kaneki said. 

 

“Whatever, they’re delicious,” Hide said. 

 

Nakamura still looked amazed by all this. 

 

“Th-thank you, Nagachika,” she said. “You didn’t have to do that for me.”

 

“No problem,” he shrugged. “And you can just call me ‘Hide’,” he added. It was not out of a desire to be friendly so much as it was him hating his own name. 

 

“A-all right then, Hide,” for some reason, she was blushing. 

 

Kaneki seemed a little put-out, which Hide thought was a little unfair, considering he’d done this for him much more than he had for her. 

 

“You could have asked for my help,” Kaneki said, sounding irritated. 

 

“What? And get you beaten up?”

 

“I can defend myself!” 

 

“I’ll believe that when I see it…”

 

“Here,” Nakamura said, cutting off Kaneki’s retort. She was offering each of them an octopus hot dog. 

 

“We couldn’t possibly-,” Kaneki said as Hide took one and ate it immediately. 

 

“Hide!” Kaneki said as Nakamura giggled. 

 

“I insist,” she said, holding out the other one to Kaneki. 

 

“Th-thanks, then,” he said, taking it from her and, of course, blushing all the while. 

 

Hide restrained himself from rolling his eyes with difficulty. 

 

What little remained of their lunch break passed in companionable silence, though Hide noticed Kaneki was a little more cold than he usually was. 

 

_ Is he really that mad I didn’t get him involved in a fight _ ? He thought, completely nonplussed. 

 

***

A few days had passed since that incident, and Hide had been keeping a close eye on Kaneki ever since, to see if maybe he and Nakamura became closer as a result. 

 

To Hide’s immense relief, it seemed nothing much had changed since that day other than maybe Nakamura saying hi to them a little more often. Hide still wasn’t sure they were out of the woods, but at least he could put that thought on the back burner for a while. 

 

A much more pressing matter was that their future plans were due that day, and Hide had not filled his out. He wondered whether or not he could get away with just not handing it in at all if he just kept saying “Oh yeah I’ll hand it in” until he passed his exams and moved into the next year. 

 

Somehow, he seriously doubted it. 

 

He hadn’t asked Kaneki was he was planning after he had been interrupted the day he saved Nakamura’s lunch,  and because Kaneki hadn’t volunteered any information himself he had assumed Kaneki was as lost as he was and wasn’t going to hand his in yet either, but to his consternation, that morning Kaneki placed his sheet of paper on the teacher’s desk like almost everyone else in class. 

 

He didn’t get a chance to ask Kaneki about it until lunch. 

 

“What did you put for your future plans?” he demanded, perhaps a bit more forcefully than he intended to. 

 

This did not go unnoticed by Kaneki.

 

“Uh… that I want to study literature?” he said hesitantly. 

 

“Not that,” Hide said impatiently. “I mean what school do you want to go to?”

 

“Kamii,” Kaneki said, so firmly that it was clear that it wasn’t something that he had just written down on a whim (Hide would certainly hope not, considering how hard Kamii was to get into), but something that he had been thinking about for a long time. 

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

 

Kaneki looked surprised. 

 

“I didn’t think it was that important?” he said, shrinking away from Hide a little. If he hadn’t been so upset with Kaneki, he might have felt guilty.

 

“You didn’t think it was important to tell your best friend where you wanted to go to university?”

 

“Well,” Kaneki said defensively. “It’s not like you told me what you’re planning.”

 

“Because I don’t know!” snapped Hide. 

 

Kaneki looked taken aback by this.

 

“Oh,” Kaneki mumbled, not meeting Hide’s eyes. “Sorry.”

 

Now Hide felt guilty about his outburst, but his stubborn pride and lingering anger at Kaneki prevented him from apologizing. 

 

They passed the rest of the lunch in stony silence, and even though they walked home together that night, they didn’t linger as long as they normally did, and there was a frostiness in the way they said goodbye.


	2. Chapter 2

Hide was thoroughly prepared to continue being angry at Kaneki the next day, but when he walked into class Kaneki looked so thoroughly miserable that Hide decided to swallow his pride.

 

“What’s with the face?” Hide asked him brightly, sitting down at his own desk. “Did your favourite character in a book die?”

 

Kaneki jumped a little, startled by the fact that Hide was talking to him, but he smiled gratefully and said “I read tragedies, Hide, the characters always die.”

 

“Boring,” Hide sighed. “Then you always know what happens.”

 

“That’s not true-”

 

Hide was spared Kaneki’s lecture on the merits of tragedies by the teacher walking in. Hide winked at Kaneki and Kaneki rolled his eyes in response. Still, Hide was glad that Kaneki looked slightly less miserable as he turned to face the board. 

 

His momentary happiness evaporated quickly when their teacher said, “Some of you didn’t hand in your future plans yesterday, please remember to have them checked by a parent or guardian and hand them in as soon as possible so I don’t have to call you in to talk after class.”

 

_Great_. Hide noticed Kaneki look at him pointedly but he refused to meet his gaze. 

 

He could just write something meaningless and hand it in. Did it even matter if they were real plans or not? That was what he had done last year, after all. But one year made such a difference in perspective. What had seemed a distant, unreal future suddenly seemed to be looming like a dark cloud over him. The farce of planning out his future was unbearable to him this year, and somehow the fact that Kaneki apparently had actual  _ plans _ that he hadn’t told Hide about made everything seem so much worse. 

 

He waited until lunch to ask Kaneki if he wanted to go get a coffee after class. 

 

“Sure,” Kaneki smiled, it seemed he was glad that Hide really still wanted to talk to him like normal.

 

“Except,” Kaneki said, looking around to make sure no one was listening in and lowering his voice, “Can you wait for me after class for a few minutes?  Nakamura-san said that she wanted to talk to me.”

 

Hide’s smile felt painful on his face. 

 

“Sure!”

 

Kaneki smiled gratefully and pulled out another piece of melon bread for lunch. 

 

“Again?” Hide asked, raising an eyebrow. “Is your aunt not feeding you properly again?”

 

Kaneki looked startled that Hide would even ask such a question. He was usually never so direct in asking about Kaneki’s home life. 

 

“It’s fine,” Kaneki said, raising a hand to touch his chin. “She’s just… been busy lately.”

 

“You don’t even like melon bread,” Hide pressed. “Couldn’t you at least buy your own lunch?”

 

He knew he was pressing too hard, but Kaneki’s excuses for his aunt’s terrible treatment of him were unbearable to listen to sometimes.

 

“I don’t have the money to spend on that right now,” Kaneki said. 

 

“And I suppose she won’t give you any.”

 

Looking desperately like he wanted this conversation to end, Kaneki said “It’s  _ fine _ , Hide. I’m not going to waste the food she gives me. Besides, I’m just trying not to spend the money I have in case I don’t get any scholarships.”

 

There he went again. 

 

“Thinking pretty far ahead, aren’t you?”

 

“It’s not that far off,” Kaneki insisted. 

 

“A year and a half,” Hide replied shortly. Deep down, he knew Kaneki was right. “Anyway, you’ll definitely get scholarships with your brains. Then you can get into a fancy university and-”

 

He was going to say  _ leave me behind _ but stopped himself.

 

“You can get into a good school too,” Kaneki said. “It’s not like you don’t get good grades.”

 

“Yeah, but I hate studying,” Hide shrugged. 

 

“You literally learned a whole language because you liked the Backstreet Boys, Hide,” Kaneki sounded irritated. “You’re just being…”

 

Kaneki stopped himself suddenly. Hide wondered what he was “being” but instead Kaneki just said, “You should put some thought into it too.”

 

Hide’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes as he said, “I prefer to make things up as I go along.”

 

**

 

Hide waited for Kaneki after school, still feeling a little put-out by this afternoon’s tense conversation with Kaneki and also feeling a little like a pet waiting obediently outside while Kaneki was inside. 

 

_ Probably getting confessed to _ , Hide thought bitterly, fiddling absently with the strap of his heavy book bag. 

 

Kaneki came out fifteen minutes later. Hide was expecting him to be elated about going on a date or something but nothing about his expression seemed overly happy. If anything he seemed sombre. 

 

Hide couldn’t quite figure it out, but he wanted to wait and see what Kaneki would tell him without Hide having to ask him. 

 

“So, coffee?” Kaneki asked 

 

“Yeah,” Hide replied, still feeling suspicious. 

 

He really wanted to know what they talked about, but Kaneki was mostly going on about an upcoming math test they had, so even if he wanted to ask Kaneki directly he wouldn’t have had a chance. 

 

It wasn’t until they had coffee in their hands, sitting down at their favourite cafe with some of Kaneki’s math notes out so they could study that Hide finally blurted out: “So, do you like Nakamura?”

 

Kaneki choked on his coffee.

 

“Wh-what?” he spluttered, his face going slightly red. 

 

“Nakamura,” Hide said impatiently. “Do you like her?”

 

“What makes you ask that?” Kaneki was not looking him in the eye.

 

“Because I’m your best friend and I’m not an idiot,” Hide said testily. “I see the way you look at her.”

 

To his utter annoyance, Kaneki just shrugged noncommittally. He had no idea why he was being so evasive on this topic, he normally wasn’t the most open person in the world, but Hide usually didn’t have to fight this hard to get Kaneki to tell him anything that didn’t involve his home life. 

 

Seemingly out of nowhere, Kaneki said “How come you told her to call you Hide?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“You told her to call you Hide,” Kaneki repeated.

 

Hide had no idea what Kaneki was getting at. 

 

“I tell everyone to call me Hide,” he said slowly. What was with Kaneki lately?  He knew that. 

 

Kaneki was still not meeting Hide’s eyes, “Yeah but… don’t you think it’s a little weird that you keep doing that?”

 

“What do you mean  _ weird _ ?” he demanded. “I don’t really like my name, you know that.”

 

“Yeah but…” Kaneki seemed to struggle internally with the desire to ask the question. “There’s nothing wrong with it. I don’t get why you don’t like it,” he seemed almost scared to finally be asking this question out loud. 

 

“It doesn’t matter,” Hide said. “I just don’t.”

 

“I think it’s a little weird that you won’t tell me the reason.”

 

“Just… drop it, Kaneki.” What could he say? That his name was a reminder of a past and ties to a family he’d rather forget? Of a future he didn’t want to think about? That the kanji of his name were a sick joke ( _ hero, good _ , like he could ever be either of those things).

 

He didn’t know where Kaneki’s sudden curiosity came from, but he didn’t like it.

 

He was starting to regret going out for coffee. 

 

Kaneki, for his part, looked like he really regretted asking him about it, or at least like he couldn’t believe his own daring at finally asking the question. Either way, he stared down at the dregs of his coffee in a silence that Hide did not have the will to break.

 

Hide drank the rest of his coffee quickly and got up. 

 

“Wh-where are you going?” Kaneki asked. 

 

“If you don’t have any more questions about math, I’m going home,” Hide said tersely. 

 

Kaneki opened and closed his mouth a few times, as though he kept wanting to say something but the words would not come out of his mouth. 

 

“I don’t have any more questions about math,” Kaneki said in a small voice. 

 

“Then…” Hide said, throwing his bag over his shoulder. 

 

Kaneki looked like he was struggling with himself until he finally said, not meeting Hide’s eyes, “Can you… will you at least walk home with me?”

 

He sounded almost ashamed at the request, and when Hide did not answer Kaneki quickly added “I mean!  If it’s not… if you don’t have have anything better to do.”

 

They usually did walk home together, unless they both had somewhere else they needed to go, but Kaneki had never outright asked him to do it. The petty, ugly part of Hide really wanted to say no, to see how Kaneki felt when he couldn’t just expect Hide to drop everything for him. 

 

But he never could say no to him.

 

“Yeah, I’ll walk home with you.”

 

Kaneki looked more relieved and grateful than Hide thought the situation called for (and that same, ugly part of him was glad to see how happy Kaneki was that he wanted to walk with him), but the silence on the way back to Kaneki’s house was awkward. 

 

Normally, the two of them could never shut up around each other until they finally parted for the night. Hide didn’t know if there was something wrong, or rather, he was  _ sure  _  there was something wrong but he had no idea what it was and he didn’t know how to fix it. 

 

During this reverie, Hide noticed that Kaneki was definitely taking the long way home. Still, they were at Kaneki’s home fairly soon. 

 

Well, Hide used the word “home” loosely. It was Kaneki’s aunt’s home, and Hide did not blame Kaneki for wanting to take the long way back there. He could never get Kaneki to talk about it, but even the stories Kaneki told him about his aunt that he accepted as normal were an indication that she treated him horribly. 

 

Kaneki seemed tense, and stood in front of the front door as though he was scared to open it. 

 

“You okay?” Hide asked. 

 

Kaneki nodded, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

 

Hide did not respond. 

 

Kaneki tried to open the door but found, to his shock, that it was locked. 

 

“She never locks the front door,” Kaneki mumbled to himself, he patted down his pockets frantically before saying, in a resigned voice. “I think I forgot my key on the kitchen table this morning.”

 

“The lights are on,” Hide said. “Why don’t you just knock?”

 

Kaneki bit his lip. “It’s just… I normally try not to bother them and just go right upstairs when I get home…”

 

In response to the look Hide was giving him, he quickly added, “J-just because I usually get home kind of late and I don’t want to bother anyone.” He touched his chin as he said this, a clear sign that he was lying (not that he knew Hide knew this, in fact he was sure Kaneki didn’t even realize that he did this).

 

Kaneki took a deep breath before knocking on the door. 

 

His aunt certainly took her sweet time getting to the door, even though Hide could hear movement in the house. She took long enough that Hide could tell Kaneki was considering the horrifying possibility of having to knock again before the door slid open and the two of them were bathed in light. 

 

“Where have you been?” Kaneki’s aunt demanded. “It’s so late, and you didn’t call, we were worried sick waiting for you.”

 

They were easily there two hours before Kaneki usually got home, and it was hardly late for two sixteen-year-old boys to be out. 

 

“S-sorry,” Kaneki said, seeming to shrink in upon himself. 

 

“You should be more considerate of the people around you.”

 

“R-right.”

 

“It’s my fault, ma’am,” Hide jumped in, a tight smile on his face. He saw Kaneki whip his head around to look at him in shock from the corner of his eye. “I was making him help me study for a test coming up.” It was just a little bit of a lie. 

 

Kaneki’s aunt raised her eyebrows. “I’m surprised you have time to help your friend here but not your own cousin.”

 

“I…” Kaneki started but then trailed off, unable or unwilling to defend himself. 

 

Hide had the distinct impression that he had just made things much worse for him.

 

“It really is all my fault!” Hide insisted, in such an overly-polite voice that it made him nauseous. “He didn’t want to, but I begged him until he did!”

 

“Well if you have time to spend on him I expect you to take more responsibility around the house.”

 

“Right,” Kaneki said. 

 

“Unless you like knowing your cousin struggles in school while you get good grades,” she said airily. 

 

_ Fuck you _ , Hide gritted his teeth for fear he might actually say some of the things on his mind.  _ Fuck you you miserable old _ -

 

“No, I don’t,” Kaneki said quietly. 

 

His aunt looked at him for a long moment before she said, “We didn’t wait up for you for dinner so you’ll have to make your own.” She turned and walked back into the house, without even giving Kaneki a chance to respond. 

 

_ As though you would have made him dinner anyway _ , Hide thought. 

 

The two stood there in a heavy silence for a moment. Hide wasn’t even sure there was anything to say. He wanted to apologize for making everything worse, but before he could say anything, Kaneki walked up to the door. 

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Hide,” he said in a voice that made it sound like he was close to tears. He didn’t look back at Hide as he slammed the door shut. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> beta'd by sondeneige


	3. Chapter 3

The paint on Hide’s bedroom walls was peeling. 

 

Hide had noticed it long ago, but felt that there was no point in trying to fix it, everything in his apartment was temporary anyway. 

 

He lay in bed, picking at the loose chips of paint as he thought about Kaneki’s aunt, the look on Kaneki’s face as he turned away from him and closed the door. 

 

White-hot rage filled him every time he thought of how Kaneki’s aunt had taunted him. And if that was how she was willing to act when Hide was watching, then how was she behind closed doors?

 

And he had only made everything worse for Kaneki by trying to help. 

 

The thought filled him with a sick, swooping sensation somewhere deep in his stomach, and he subconsciously dug his nails into the palm of his hands until the mild pain snapped him out of it. 

 

He took a deep breath. 

 

An unpleasant surprise had been waiting for him when he got home. His answering machine was beeping and when he played the message-

 

_ This is your son’s homeroom teacher. I want to inform you he still hasn’t handed in his future plan form. If he hasn’t handed it in by the end of next week, we should arrange a meeting to discuss- _

 

“Oh, fuck off!” Hide snapped and slammed the pause button, hastily deleting the message for good measure. 

 

It was just his luck to get an over-involved, busybody homeroom teacher this year. Normally they couldn’t care less whether he handed in his plans on time or not. 

 

Well, the joke was on her, because Hide’s “guardians” were never going to be around to hear the message anyway. 

 

The thought had occurred to him, as it had a thousand times before, to ask Kaneki to come live with him. But he knew that it was impossible. And even if it wasn’t, Kaneki would never accept such charity from a friend. 

 

He thought of the look on Kaneki’s face when he argued with Hide, the plans he was making without him, the way he slammed the door on his face tonight, and wondered if Kaneki would even want to live with him if Hide asked. 

 

He would apologize to Kaneki tomorrow.

 

***

 

One look at Kaneki’s face the next day made it clear to Hide that he had fucked up. 

 

Kaneki was pale, and tired-looking, as though he had barely slept. Hide doubted anyone else would notice, because no one knew him as well as Hide did, but he could tell Kaneki had probably been crying that morning. 

 

They met in their usual spot near the school before walking together. Several other students wearing their school’s uniform headed in the same direction, but none of them gave Hide or Kaneki a second glance. 

 

“Hey,” Kaneki said awkwardly, with an attempt at a smile that looked more painful than if he hadn’t tried at all. 

 

“Hey,” Hide said, not bothering to smile back. “Kaneki, are you okay?”

 

That wiped the smile off Kaneki’s face. 

 

“I’m fine,” he said shortly. 

 

“So your aunt wasn’t a huge bitch to you last night?” Hide snapped.

 

“Don’t call her that, Hide,” Kaneki said warily, and Hide wanted to scream in frustration. Why was Kaneki so concerned with politeness towards a woman who treated him like garbage?

 

Kaneki seemed to consider what he was about to say very carefully before he said. “She was just… a little worse than she normally is. It’s mostly my fault for being so inconsiderate anyway.”

 

Hide didn’t respond. 

 

“I might not be able to stay as long after school starting next week,” Kaneki added quickly. 

 

“What?”

 

“I mean… my cousin does need help with school. So I said I’d tutor him.”

 

Hide ran a hand through his hair. “You’re wasting your time, man. He sucks at school because all he does is play videogames, he probably won’t even listen to you.”

 

Kaneki grimaced. “I know, but-”

 

“But you have no idea how to say no,” Hide said shortly. Kaneki looked offended, Hide didn’t blame him. “And now you’re taking more shit on when you have exams coming up soon.”

 

“Drop it, Hide.”

 

“Maybe I should tutor him,” Hide said, half-serious and half-joking, trying to lighten the mood. “He won’t dare cross me. Plus you suck at math anyway.”

 

That got a smile out of Kaneki, a real one this time. Hide allowed himself to feel a little pleased that he had managed to cheer him up, even if it was just a little. 

 

“I can’t see you being a very strict teacher, Hide.”

 

“Hey, I can be a real hard-ass if I want to!”

 

Kaneki laughed, and okay, maybe Hide felt more than a little pleased for making him laugh. He felt his face go just a little warm. 

 

_ Stop it. Stop thinking like that _ . 

 

“I-,” Hide started and stopped abruptly. They were approaching the school gates now. “I’m… sorry.”

 

“For what?” . 

 

“For last night,” Hide said. “I think I made everything worse for you.”

 

Kaneki just shrugged. “It’s fine, Hide.” He touched his chin as he said it, and Hide felt his heart sink. He really had fucked everything up for him, hadn’t he?

 

He couldn’t bring himself to pursue the subject further, so instead he said. “Listen, since you’re going to be busy next week, how about we go to the park to hang out tonight?”

 

“Sounds good,” Kaneki said. It sounded like he meant it. 

 

Breathing a sigh of relief that this situation was still salvageable, Hide walked through the school gates with Kaneki. 

 

Only to be greeted almost immediately by Nakamura. 

 

“Good morning!” she said brightly. 

 

“G-good morning,” Kaneki said, sounding both flustered and mildly alarmed at her sudden appearance. “Were you waiting for us?”

 

“No,” she said. Hide had to fight to keep from rolling his eyes. She was almost a good a liar as Kaneki. 

 

“The bell’s going to ring soon,” Hide said dully. “We should head inside.”

 

Nakamura nodded quickly. To Hide’s great surprise, she moved to walk by Hide’s side instead of Kaneki’s, so that Hide was in the unenviable position of being between the two of them. She also seemed to glance around nervously, though Hide could not imagine why. 

 

He shot a sideways glance at Kaneki, to see if he noticed her odd behaviour, but Kaneki was determinedly not looking at either of them, and had an incredibly sour look on his face. 

 

Hide thought he was going to run out of patience for everyone’s petty problems very soon. Though he hated himself a little for thinking that maybe their little love confession hadn’t gone well, and for feeling distinctly happy at the thought. 

 

_ Some friend I am _ , he thought miserably as the three of them sat down in awkward silence. 

 

The first few classes were even more like torture than normal. Hide was waiting for an opportunity to talk to Nakamura without Kaneki around.

 

Thankfully, when lunch came around Kaneki stood up to get a drink from the vending machine. Normally, Hide would have gone with him, but instead he asked him to get a drink for him.

“Something filled with sugar or caffeine, or better yet both!” He shouted at Kaneki as he walked through the door. 

 

Kaneki waved in acknowledgement when he walked out the door and Hide waited until he was well out of earshot. 

 

“So,” he said, leaning in towards Nakamura and causing the poor girl to jump in surprise and nearly drop the book she was reading. “Wanna tell me what this morning was about?”

 

“Wh-what do you mean?” she asked, a blush creeping up on her cheeks. 

 

“I mean there’s no way you weren’t waiting for us, and you were obviously nervous about something,” Hide said testily. “So what’s up?”

 

She sighed. “I- I think that Kinomoto is after me again. Yesterday someone went into my bag and ripped up all my notes.” 

 

“What makes you think it was him?” Hide narrowed his eyes. He didn’t want to say that it could have been anyone in the class, but Nakamura wasn’t exactly popular. 

 

“He was staring at me all day and laughed when I finally caught his eye, and mimed ripping up a bunch of paper,” she said in an unusually dry tone. 

 

“Oh,” Hide said. “Well, I’m no detective but yeah then it was probably him.”

 

Nakamura laughed a little more than Hide thought his sarcasm warranted. 

 

“Hate to break it to you, but Kaneki and I aren’t exactly good bodyguards.”

 

She shrugged. “I just didn’t want to be alone. Besides,” she added, suddenly giving Hide a look he couldn’t quite read, “You helped me before.”

 

“That was definitely a fluke. I don’t think I’ll be able to pull it off again.”

 

“I just… don’t get why they hate me so much,” she said, suddenly and so quietly Hide could barely hear her. 

 

Feeling a sudden stab of pity for her, Hide said, “He’s just jealous he can’t get a girl as good as you.”

 

A can of coffee was rather abruptly shoved in his face. 

 

“I didn’t even hear you come in,” Hide said.

 

“Obviously,” Kaneki said, somewhat coldly. 

 

“Well, uh, thanks for the coffee,” Hide opened it, completely baffled. He glanced over at Nakamura and saw that she was pretty red in the face now. 

 

For once, Hide was grateful for Japanese class to start. Even if he had to endure inscrutable poems by dead people. 

 

***

 

“-They are not  _ inscrutable _ , Hide,” Kaneki said as they walked to grab food together after school let out. “You just don’t want to put in the effort to-”

 

“Scrute them?”

 

“That is… absolutely not a word.”

 

“If I get enough people to say it, it’s a word.”

 

“I will stop you before that happens,” Kaneki said, exasperated but grinning at Hide’s antics. 

 

“Whatever,” Hide said. “Just bring me within the proximity of a burger and milkshake.”

 

The two of them hung around Big Girl for more time than strictly necessary, waiting until it got dark and they could have their small park mostly to themselves. 

 

Kaneki blushed when a waitress in a low-cut shirt bent over their table to give them their food. Hide was caught between wanting to laugh at him and being annoyed. 

 

Still, it was nice to come to the place they always did and to pretend for a moment that everything was okay and they hadn’t been at each other’s throats for the past week or so.

 

Years of practice meant that they knew the exact time the park would empty out and they could sit on their favourite play structure without looking weird for being two teenagers hanging out near a bunch of kids, or making older people think they were going to start trouble (Hide had to laugh at the time an old woman demanded to know if a very flustered and quiet Kaneki was in a gang). 

 

“I’ve always wondered why they built it to look like a whale,” Hide said, reaching out a hand to help Kaneki scramble up the tail.

 

Kaneki scrambled up gracelessly and sat on top on the whale’s head with Hide. 

 

“Probably because kids think it’s cute,” Kaneki was breathing a little heavily.

 

“You need to work out more, man,” Hide laughed. Kaneki elbowed him playfully in the ribs. 

 

Hide tried to ignore how warm his hand felt where Kaneki had held it.

 

“I refuse to work out.”

 

“I guess I’ll have to train you up before we get tested for gym class.”

 

“Oh  _ god _ , I think I’d rather fail.”

 

“You’re so cruel to me, Kaneki.”

 

Kaneki just rolled his eyes. 

 

The two sat in companionable silence for a while. It was nice to just be like this for a bit, in the still silence of the park with no one around to bother them. 

 

Kaneki’s hand was mere centimetres from Hide’s. If he wanted to, he could reach out and put his hand on Kaneki’s and make it seem like it was unintentional…

 

“What were you and Nakamura talking about when I was gone?” Kaneki asked out of nowhere. 

 

“Huh?” Hide looked up guiltily from staring at Kaneki’s hand. 

 

“When I came back you were talking to her about something.” He tried to look casual about this question, but he didn’t look at Hide as he asked it. 

 

“She’s being bullied by Kinomoto again, that’s why she was hanging out with us this morning. Probably didn’t want to be caught alone.”

 

“Oh,” Kaneki said, frowning. 

 

“So, on that note” Hide said, turning to face Kaneki. “You finally going to tell me what you two talked about yesterday?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Come on,” Hide said. “I don’t know why you’re being so secretive about it.”

 

“I’m not… being secretive,” Kaneki touched his chin. 

 

Hide had had enough of this. “You know I’m not an idiot, right?”

 

“I never said you were!” Kaneki looked horrified. 

 

“So why are you acting like I won’t figure out something is up?”

 

“I-” Kaneki closed his eyes. “Why  _ did  _ you help her the other day?”

 

Hide was thrown off by the subject change. 

 

“I don’t know, why wouldn’t I?”

 

“I just…” Kaneki bit his lip. “Do you like her?”

 

“What? As, like… a person? She’s alright I guess.” Hide was still trying to figure out what on earth Kaneki was talking about, and neglected to mention his bitterness towards her. Not that Kaneki needed to know about it.

 

“You know that’s not what I meant, Hide,” Kaneki looked really annoyed now. 

 

“Enlighten me.”

 

Kaneki took a deep breath. 

 

“Okay,” he said finally. “You were right that I was sort of hoping she might confess to me,” Kaneki looked like every word of this was causing him physical pain. “But she didn’t.”

 

Hide nodded, prompting him to go on.

 

“I… she told me she likes you, Hide,” Kaneki finished. 

 

“Huh?”

 

“You. Nakamura likes you.”

 

“Okay,” Hide said slowly. 

 

“Is that all you have to say about it?”

 

“What else is there to say? I’m… sorry?”

 

Kaneki frowned. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

 

“That the girl you like likes me instead?” 

 

Kaneki just shrugged. “It’s… not a big deal.” Once again, he touched his chin, not that Hide would have needed to know that particular quirk to know that Kaneki was really hurt by all this.

 

Hide didn’t know how to respond, but he couldn’t stop himself from saying. ”Why?”

 

“Why what?”

 

“Why does she… like me?” For some reason saying it out loud left a bitter taste in his mouth. 

 

“I don’t know, maybe because you’re the popular, good-looking guy from her class who saved her from bullies?” There was a distinct note of bitterness and sarcasm in Kaneki’s voice, it wasn’t like him. 

 

Hide wanted to respond that he really wasn’t that popular, but he felt his stomach clench in an odd way when Kaneki described him as “good-looking”, and was distracted enough by that to say nothing.

 

“So,” Kaneki said, with a smile that did not meet his eyes that clearly said he wanted to turn the conversation to something more nice. “Are you going to ask her out?”

 

“Why would I do that?” 

 

“Why wouldn’t you?” Kaneki said, irritation creeping back into his voice. “She’s nice, she’s pretty-”

 

“She’s not my type,” Hide said, with a sinking feeling that was close to panic. “I don’t like her like that.”

 

“Do you like  _ anyone _ ?” Kaneki asked. 

 

Hide wanted to say “no”, but before he could stop himself he heard himself saying, “I don’t know.”

 

Kaneki gave him an odd look. “I’m not even going to ask what that means, Hide.”

 

Hide just shrugged, relief washing over him. 

 

Kaneki sighed again. “I feel like we should do something about the people bullying her.”

 

Annoyed that the conversation couldn’t seem to get away from Nakamura, Hide said, “Like what?”

 

“I don’t know, tell the teachers? Maybe they can do something.”

 

Hide snickered. “The teachers are completely useless, what are they going to do about it?”

 

“They aren’t  _ useless _ , Hide.”

 

_ Then why don’t they notice how your aunt treats you, why don’t they notice how miserable you are, how come they don’t care that my “guardians” are never really around, why didn’t they notice the bruises on your arms when you were a kid- _

 

“That’s a matter of opinion,” Hide said simply. 

 

Kaneki shot him a sharp look, “You’re just annoyed that for once a teacher is actually bothering to make you hand in your future plans on time.”

 

“She even called my house! Who does that?”

 

“Well, maybe you need that push.”

 

“I’m still not doing it.”

 

“She’ll just make you meet up with her.”

 

“She can do whatever she wants, it’s not going to make me come up with any more of a plan than I have now.”

 

“Why are you being so stubborn about this?” Kaneki finally snapped. 

 

“Because I don’t want to think about it, okay?” Hide didn’t mean to shout, but he did and Kaneki recoiled from him. “I’m not like you, I don’t have some big master plan that I can’t be bothered to tell my best friend about, if that’s what you’re worried about. I just don’t fucking know!”

 

Kaneki opened and closed his mouth several times, clearly shocked into silence. 

 

“I don’t… have a master plan. What are you talking about?”

 

“Don’t lie to me!” Hide snapped. 

 

“I…really don’t know what you’re talking about, Hide.”

 

“No? So you just deciding what university you want to go to and what you want to do after high school without once telling your best friend is just because you don’t give a shit?”

 

Kaneki shrank away from Hide. He had never once seen Hide this upset, at least not directed towards him, and it frightened him. 

 

“Hide, I- I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”

 

Hide closed his eyes, trying to stay calm. What could he say?

 

_ You’re all I have, you’re all I have and you’re leaving me.  _

 

_ I don’t think you need me as much as I need you.  _

 

_ You don’t want me the way I want you.  _

 

Hide said nothing. 

 

Kaneki looked down at his feet, and Hide was looking at some point off in the distance but not really seeing it. 

 

“I… how am I supposed to know if you won’t-” His shaky voice was so quiet that Hide was almost unsure that he had spoken. 

 

“Tell you?” Hide finished icily, even as a sick feeling of guilt swept through him, even as everything in him told him he would regret it. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

 

“Is this seriously all about the school thing, because that’s just-”

 

“‘I’m fine, Hide!,’” Hide mimicked. “‘My aunt doesn’t treat me like shit, or anything! Even though you literally just saw her do it!’”

 

Kaneki’s jaw dropped. 

 

“Take that back,” Kaneki’s voice was low and cold, and Hide knew that he had finally gone too far. 

 

“No,” Hide said.

 

“Well what about  _ your _ family?” Kaneki demanded. 

 

“What?” Hide said sharply, suddenly frightened. 

 

“It’s not like  _ they’re _ ever around,” Kaneki said. “And you hate them so much that you can’t even stand people calling you by your family name-”

 

“Back off,” Hide said, angry even though he knew he had no right to be. Even though Kaneki was only returning his low blow with one of his own. 

 

“Am I wrong?” Kaneki asked petulantly.

 

“I’d rather never have my...  _ family _ around than live with your aunt.”

 

Kaneki curled his hand into a fist. Hide really thought for a moment that Kaneki would take a swing at him, and Hide almost wanted him to. Hide wouldn’t fight back. 

 

But Kaneki was better than that. He took a deep breath and made to get off the play structure. 

 

“Where are you going?” Hide asked. The question felt almost childish. 

 

“Home,” Kaneki said, in a voice devoid of emotion. He landed on the ground with a hard thud.

 

“Don’t follow me,” Kaneki said, without looking back at Hide as he walked away. 

 

The warning was unnecessary. Hide knew better than to follow Kaneki. 

 

He didn’t know how long he sat there, after Kaneki left. It felt like it could have been five minutes or five hours. He didn’t allow himself to think or feel anything. 

 

He finally got up and started walking home when he couldn’t stop himself from thinking that he had been so scared of Kaneki leaving him that he had made sure he actually did. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> beta'd by sondeneige


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello I am still alive (more or less). 
> 
> Thanks as always to sondeneige for beta'ing and listening to me talk about this for ages, and also sinshine for reading it over for me :').

“Nagachika, are you listening to me?”

 

“Yes,” Hide said, in as polite a tone as he could muster.

 

His homeroom teacher, Ueda-sensei, gave him an entirely unimpressed look. 

 

“Tell me what I just said, then.”

 

_ Shit _ .

 

“Uh…” Hide struggled to come up with something as she raised her eyebrows at him. 

 

“...Sorry,” Hide mumbled, not looking her in the eye. 

 

She sighed in frustration. ”I was saying that I don’t understand why you can’t just fill in your future plans form.”

 

“I don’t have any plans.” He didn’t have the energy to make up an excuse right now. 

 

“It’s not like this is a binding contract. You can put something and change your mind, you know.”

 

Hide just shrugged. 

 

“You must have some idea of what you want to do.”

 

He shook his head. Why couldn’t they just end this already?

 

She gave him a searching look. “You know if you don’t hand in your form I do have to call your guardians.”

 

Hide stiffened. 

 

This did not go unnoticed. “Do you not want me to?”

 

“I…” Hide’s voice suddenly caught in his throat. He took a moment to compose himself before saying, “I don’t see why that’s necessary.”

 

“It’s school policy,” she said delicately. “It’s not up to me.”

 

Hide said nothing. 

 

“Is there a reason you don’t want them to know?”

 

_ I want to stay as far away from them as possible. I don’t want them to know anything about my life. I want to escape from them after I’m done high school even if I know that’s not possible.  _

 

There were a million reasons, but none of them were ones he could tell anybody. 

 

So he said nothing. 

 

“Nagachika.” She said, and it was so much softer than she had said it before, “Let me help you.”

 

_ You can’t _ . 

 

Hide had managed to get away with a lot with his teachers. Being something of a class clown and managing to get good marks at the same time generally meant most teachers were fond of him and left him well enough alone. That was, of course, Hide’s plan. 

 

He tried to look Ueda-sensei in the eye but he couldn’t. He had known ever since he started this year that she was going to be a problem for him. She was young enough that she couldn’t have been teaching for very long, maybe just a couple years at most, yet she was experienced enough to be confident in her ability to control a class. But most of all, he had seen immediately that she was the kind of person who had gotten into teaching because she wanted to help people, and she was not yet so jaded that she had given up.

 

Hide was used to being ignored by adults who assumed he was fine on his own. He was used to being toyed with by adults who wanted something from him. 

 

But he was not used to an adult who wanted to help him. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had no ulterior motive. Who saw that something was wrong and wanted to make it better. In fact, he was sure no one had ever done that for him. 

 

He suddenly felt very small, standing by her desk as she stared at him. 

 

“Can I go now?” 

 

“No,” she said. 

 

“Why not?” He winced at the petulance in his voice. 

 

“Because we aren’t done.”

 

“I don’t think there’s anything you can do for me.”

 

“Why don’t we start by thinking of things you enjoy and working from there to get some ideas about what you could study.” She sounded like a patient parent trying to explain logic to a three-year-old. “You’re good at school, what are your favourite classes?”

 

All the classes were the same to him. Everything was equally boring and equally unchallenging. 

 

Correctly interpreting his silence, she asked instead, “What are you interested in?”

 

“I’ve never been interested in something long enough to really know.” He regretted the words the instant they were out of his mouth. Why did he tell her that?

 

“I think we both know that’s not true. I seem to recall your friend Kaneki telling a story about  how you learned English to listen to the Backstreet Boys.”

 

Hide’s brief flash of annoyance at the fact that Kaneki always told people that story vanished when he thought about everything that transpired between them last night. 

 

“Nagachika?”

 

His head bowed, his hands clenched into fists, there was no way she didn't see something was very wrong.

 

“Nagachika? What's the matter?”

 

He just shook his head. If he said anything the tears would finally spill and he could not bear to be seen like that by anyone. The one thing in his life that had been a constant, the only thing that made sense, was gone and it was his fault because he was so horrible that of course once he had dropped his facade even a little Kaneki could not bear to be around him. 

 

Finally Ueda-sensei said, “I'll give you a week’s extension. That's all I can do. Please think about what you’re interested in and try and come up with something based on that.” 

 

He nodded. 

 

“And...if there's anything you need to talk about, I'm always here.”

 

“Thank you.” Hide said quietly, knowing full well he would never take her up on the offer.

 

“You may go now”

 

Hide left the room as quickly as he could without being rude. He took a few shaky breaths when he was alone in the hallway, and hid in the bathroom until the bell rang for classes. 

 

***

Hide and Kaneki generally tried to keep a low profile at school. Or rather, Kaneki kept a low profile and Hide went along with it because he knew it was what Kaneki wanted. He only ever went to events or parties when he thought that Kaneki needed a chance to get out of his shell. Hide wouldn’t have particularly described either of them as having many friends or being of interest to anyone. 

 

Which was why he was extremely annoyed to find that  _ everyone _ noticed that Nagachika and Kaneki were no longer on speaking terms. 

 

The first day, he sat down heavily at his desk, avoiding Kaneki’s gaze and sure that Kaneki was avoiding his (but, of course, not looking at Kaneki long enough to know). He tried not to think about anything, about the meeting he had just had with his teacher, about Kaneki, about the  _ look _ Nakamura gave him as she looked nervously between them. 

 

_ What right does she have to be worried about us now _ ? A very nasty and unfair part of Hide blamed Nakamura for this mess, even though he knew it was really all on him. 

 

That day, Hide bolted out of his desk the second it was time for lunch and he could have sworn he heard Kaneki start to say something to him but Hide was not sticking around for another fight. He had already wrecked everything, why get in another fight and drive the wedge between them even further?

 

_ As if I could even fuck things up any more than I already have _ , Hide thought. 

 

He forgot to bring a lunch that day. Maybe he had gotten too reliant on the lunches Kaneki brought, pathetic though they were. 

 

He wasn’t hungry anyway. He briefly considered going to the roof but knew Kinomoto and his gang of idiots would probably be there and he most certainly was not in the mood to deal with that. 

 

The second day (and Hide was more than a little perturbed to find that he was counting days in relation to the end of his friendship with Kaneki), he could have sworn he saw a few of the girls in the class shoot him a pitying look as he walked in, but he ignored them. 

 

The third day, when he walked in there was some muttering, but he chalked it up to people gossipping about the fact that Nakamura had had her desk scribbled all over. 

 

Kaneki wasn’t actually there yet, the first time Hide had beaten Kaneki to class in a while. 

 

Nakamura was frantically scrubbing at her desk but all she had managed to do was make the permanent marker slightly smudged. It still clearly said “DIE!!!” along with a number of creative illustrations. 

 

“Subtle and tasteful, as always,” Hide said, hovering over her desk. She jumped a little and looked at Hide with tears in her eyes. 

 

“I’ll go to the supply closet,” Hide sighed. “You’re never going to get this out with soap and water.”

 

“Isn’t the closet locked?”

 

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Hide smiled. “Yes. Yes, it is,” he said, walking out of the classroom without any further explanation. 

 

He came back in less than five minutes with his arms full of cleaners and paper towels. His temporary feeling of triumph came to an abrupt end when he saw that Kaneki had arrived in the time he had been gone, and was comforting Nakamura in a low voice. 

 

And, okay, it definitely was not Hide’s imagination that many in the class seemed to glance between him and Kaneki when he walked in. They thrived off of drama, of course they would notice that something was off between the two people who seemed like they’d never be apart. 

 

Hide wordlessly thrust a towel and a bottle of blue spray towards Kaneki, who at least took it without question. The two scrubbed at the desk silently, a small part of Hide wanted to pretend that this meant that things were okay between them, that they were united in this small act. 

 

His hand brushed against Kaneki’s accidentally, and Kaneki jerked his hand away. Hide felt as though a bolt of electricity had gone through him, a feeling that was quickly extinguished by an odd sinking in the pit of his stomach at Kaneki’s obvious disgust at touching him, and he made sure to keep his hand well away from Kaneki’s as they worked. 

 

The desk finally came clean just a minute before the teacher arrived, and Hide hastily ran and stowed the cleaning products he stole in the cupboard at the back of the class. 

 

He turned to see Kaneki and Nakamura shooting each other a look and Hide threw himself into his chair with unnecessary force. 

 

He paid even less attention in class than usual that day. He wasn’t being paranoid, he knew that everyone had noticed that he and Kaneki weren’t friends anymore. The thought made Hide feel pathetic and it somehow made everything even more real than before. 

 

When lunch came he figured he might as well put the stuff he stole back into the supply closet before anyone noticed it was gone. Of course, he hadn’t brought his lunch with him again. 

 

He was mostly moving on autopilot as he walked down the hall. He had checked to make sure there were no teachers in sight (he was sure he would be able to talk his way out of trouble, but it was really more hassle than it was worth to have to deal with that) but he didn’t bother to keep an eye on his fellow students. What did he care if they saw him?

 

Unfortunately, that meant that Hide was taken entirely by surprise when the supply closet door slammed behind him and he was forcefully grabbed and turned around. 

 

“Hey, Nagachika,” Kinomoto’s smile was not friendly. 

 

“Hey,” Hide said, his brain searching for an escape route ( _ unlikely _ ), while also wondering just what the hell he had done to deserve this one. 

 

“I’m just here for a little chat.”

 

“And that needs to be done locked in a supply closet?” Hide couldn’t stop himself from saying it. He wished he could just shut up every once in awhile. 

 

“I heard you cleaned up my message for Nakamura.”

 

“News travels fast,” Hide said, once again his mouth moved faster than his brain. Hide briefly wondered if Kinomoto had actually come in just to scribble on Nakamura’s desk and then left before class started, but it occurred to him, as he remembered the girls mumbling in a group when he had walked into class, that some of them must be on Kinomoto’s side. 

 

The thought perturbed him slightly. He wasn’t really that surprised to know they were capable of it, yet a part of him was still disappointed by it.

 

“You’ve been doing that a lot lately.”

 

“Huh?” Hide snapped out of his reverie. 

 

“Helping Nakamura out.”

 

“Well,” Hide said slowly, his temper was not exactly in control lately, but he was losing what little remained of his self-control. “You see, there’s this asshole and his asshole friends who won’t leave her alone.”

 

Hide was shoved, roughly, up against the shelf behind him. 

 

“Watch your mouth, Nagachika,” he snarled. And, for once, Hide kept quiet. 

 

“Just stay out of this if you know what’s good for you,” Kinomoto said, letting go of Hide’s collar. 

 

Hide wanted to ask what the hell his problem was, and what exactly he was supposed to stay out of, but just then Kinomoto’s phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket to check it. 

 

‘Well, Nagachika, good talk,” he said. “But I have to go hang out with my friends,” he grinned wickedly. “Unlike some of us, I actually have friends who want to hang out with me.”

 

Great. Even Kinomoto noticed. It was a grade-school level insult but he had to admit, it stung.  Hide curled his hands into fists but, fortunately, Kinomoto didn’t notice and left Hide alone in the closet with nothing but a sore shoulder and a growing sense of frustration. 

 

Maybe it was because he had been so annoyed by Kinomoto, but it wasn’t until he was walking back to the classroom that he put it together. He was really starting to question his own deduction skills.

 

Kinomoto liked Nakamura. And he assumed Hide was trying to hit on her. 

 

He almost wanted to laugh, though he also thought screaming or punching something sounded pretty satisfying too. This was all so stupid. He never wanted to get mixed up in all this shit.

 

Kinomoto sat in class for the first time since he had torn up Nakamura’s work. Hide assumed it was to keep an eye on him, but he didn’t mind because the tension caused by his presence was enough to keep most people from staring at him and Kaneki. 

 

When the school day finally came to an end, Hide got up to leave and looked at Kaneki instinctively. Kaneki was determinedly avoiding his gaze and put his books into his bag with entirely too much concentration. 

 

Hide turned and stormed out of the room. 

 

To his surprise, Nakamura followed him. 

 

“What are you doing?” Hide demanded, not bothering to look at her. 

 

“I...Kinomoto was there and I didn’t want to leave on my own.”

 

“Why not leave with Kaneki?”

 

“I…” Nakamura blushed and Hide had to fight from rolling his eyes. Right. She liked him. 

 

A part of him wanted to call her out on it right here. But he knew he would regret it. What right did he have to look down on her? He was just as pathetic. 

 

“You know Kinomoto cornered me today?” He said. 

 

“I- I didn’t know…”

 

Hide sighed. “It’s fine. It’s not your fault he’s an ass. I’ll walk you home.”

 

She smiled gratefully. They stayed quiet as they reached their lockers. Neither of them was particularly surprised to see that someone had stolen her shoes from her locker, and she had to walk home in her slippers. 

 

As they walked home, Nakamura suddenly said. “Why aren’t you talking to Kaneki?”

 

Hide stiffened. 

 

“It’s none of your business.”

 

“But- I think he misses you…”

 

Hide snorted. “I doubt it. But if he does, he can tell me that himself.”

 

“But-”

 

“Drop it.”

 

He felt bad when he felt her shrink away from him. But he did not want to talk about Kaneki, especially not with her. He wondered whether Kaneki had put her up to this, but he dismissed the idea immediately. Kaneki would never trouble someone else with his problems like that. He was probably pretending everything was perfectly fine.

 

When they got to where they had to go in separate directions they parted with a terse goodbye. Hide shot a look at Nakamura and saw her shoulders slumped. He wondered if she felt more defeated that he didn’t return her affections, or that she had failed to get Hide to try and reconcile with Kaneki. 

 

Hide did not want to go home, but all the places he would normally go to with Kaneki were far too depressing to visit now.  He ended up aimlessly wandering the city for a long time, until he was tired enough that he thought he might actually sleep when he finally got back to his place. 

 

***

 

He was very tempted to write “I don’t have a future” on his future plan form, but he thought that would be melodramatic and also probably land him in counselling. 

 

It was fun to think about, though. A part of him wanted to see the look on Ueda-sensei’s face when she saw that he was a hopeless case. 

 

_ See! You were wrong to have faith in me, joke’s on you! _

 

He wasn’t sure if he was more annoyed at the fact that Nakamura was waiting for him at school or the fact that Kaneki wasn’t. Not that he was expecting him to be.

 

She smiled and waved cheerily and Hide’s mouth twitched in a half-hearted attempt at a smile. She was really going to have to stop doing that. 

 

Nakamura seemed relieved that her desk had not been vandalized again, Hide tried to smile encouragingly but something about the absence of antagonism was alarming. 

 

Reminding himself firmly that it was not his problem, he sat down at his desk. 

 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a group of girls muttering and shooting him looks. He felt his ears go red from embarrassment, which was itself an embarrassing habit that he hated. 

 

There were giggles and whispers (“you ask him”, “no you do it”), before Kimiko, girl with whom Hide was generally on good terms, said “I’ll do it!” and Hide turned away before she could see him looking in their direction as she strode confidently towards him.

 

“Hey, Hide,” she said brightly. 

 

“Hey,” said Hide, filled with foreboding. 

 

“So are you and Kaneki fighting?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“You and Kaneki?” She repeated, raising her eyebrows. “You guys haven’t talked in like, a week.”

 

In his peripheral vision he could see her friends freaking out at how forward she was being in asking him. One of the more timid ones had actually buried her face in her hands. 

 

Hide didn’t respond. But his silence was enough of an answer.

 

“Is it because of  _ her _ ?” She lowered her voice and jerked her head in Nakamura’s direction, distaste evident in her tone.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Are you mad Kaneki likes her?”

 

“What’s that supposed to-,” Hide stopped himself, though he very much did not like the look she was giving him. “It’s...not because of her.” 

 

She gave him a skeptical look, and Hide was almost relieved when Kinomoto walked in and offered a distraction just with his horrible presence. That was, he was relieved until he saw the look Kinomoto was giving him, which clearly said “I saw you with Nakamura this morning and you’re dead”, which was less than ideal. 

 

Ueda-sensei walked in early and everyone headed to their seats, probably saving Hide from being brutally murdered. Hide was suddenly ashamed of the uncharitable thoughts he had had about his teacher this morning.

 

Kaneki walked in before the bell, but far later than he normally arrived. He looked unusually pale and he was frowning intently. Hide was sure something must have happened at home but, he supposed, he no longer had the right to ask. 

 

It didn’t stop the sick, twisted feeling in his stomach the rest of the class. The nagging suspicion that Kaneki was feeling so awful because of him, the horrible guilt that he couldn’t help him. 

 

“Nagachika.”

 

Hide jumped slightly in his chair. Everyone was staring at him and the teacher was looking at him expectantly, her eyebrows raised. The chalkboard was covered in notes and clearly more time had passed than he had noticed. He didn’t even have his notebook out. 

 

“Do you know the answer to question three?”

 

Hide made sure to look her in the eye as he said “No”. He swore he could see Kaneki shake his head slightly beside him, whether he was telling Hide to knock it off or whether he was just embarrassed of him Hide neither knew nor cared in that moment.

 

He had hoped to get some sort of reaction out of her, but all she said was “Nagachika, get out your notebook and catch up with the rest of the class.” There was maybe a bit more bite in her voice than there usually was when she told him off.

 

Grimacing and feeling oddly ashamed of himself, Hide got out his notebook. He actually took notes throughout class, a rarity for him, but he wasn’t sure he took in any of the information. 

 

The rest of the day passed miserably but uneventfully. He didn’t leave the classroom during lunch. He didn’t have the energy. 

 

Plus, Kinomoto was glaring at him in a way that strongly suggested he was not going to let Hide leave the class.

 

Kaneki hadn’t left the class either. Instead, he kept looking at Hide as though he was expecting Hide to notice his distress and turn to him with a stupid joke and a smile on his face like he always did. 

 

A part of Hide wanted that,  _ most _ of Hide wanted that. He wanted to turn to Kaneki and pretend like none of the last week had ever happened and they would never need to talk about it and everyone would forget about it and people would stop staring at him in class-

 

But he just couldn’t bring himself to, and he knew that it wouldn’t be that simple anyway. 

 

So he stared pointedly at his notes without even reading them. And Kaneki turned to Nakamura and she asked him if he needed help with the math and started explaining things to him that Hide knew he could explain better. And Kaneki had already replaced him even for this. And Kaneki leaned a little too close to her even though he knew she didn’t feel the same way. 

 

And maybe Hide had lied to Kimiko when he said it wasn’t about Nakamura. 

 

It didn’t take Kinomoto long to lose what patience he was exercising, Hide assumed he was just waiting until he was sure the teacher wasn’t coming back. He got out his desk and strode over to Hide and Kaneki. Though, Hide noted dully, it was Hide’s desk he chose to stand in front of. It wasn’t until Kinomoto stood over Hide that Hide truly appreciated that Kinomoto was quite a bit larger than him. He had always thought of Kinomoto as kind of a joke, an approximation of what a high school bully should be that Kinomoto had crafted from watching TV. But it occurred to Hide that, even if that were the case, it would still hurt quite a bit if Kinomoto punched him. 

 

Kaneki and Nakamura had both stopped talking and sat frozen, as though playing dead would save them. 

 

“What do you want?” Hide said.

 

Kaneki and Nakamura both looked at him in fear.

 

“Didn’t you tell your friend about my little warning?”

 

Well, shit. Hide panicked slightly as Kaneki shot him a sharp look. He had been so wrapped up in his own problems that it hadn’t occurred to him that Kinomoto obviously wouldn’t like Kaneki interacting with Nakamura either. 

 

“What are we supposed to do, not interact with our classmate?” Hide decided to go defiant. “She sits right next to us, dumbass.”

 

Nakamura seemed to shrink upon herself when she realized it was about her.

 

Kinomoto slammed his hands on the desk and what little chatter remained in the classroom fell silent. 

 

“Listen, Nagachika, just stay the fuck away from her and mind your own business,” he snarled. 

 

Hide stood up from his desk. He heard the whispers start up again, including someone saying “let’s go find the teacher”, but no one dared move.

 

He was rather glad to have an audience. They could serve as witnesses when he died.

 

“ _ Fuck off _ , Kinomoto,” Hide said, his voice was trembling and his hands were curled into fists at his side. Even he wasn’t sure where this rage was coming from. 

 

“ _ What _ ?” Kinomoto said. 

 

“I said  _ fuck off _ ,” Hide said, even as he was sure he was sealing his doom with each word. He took a step to the side so that the desk was no longer between him and Kinomoto. “You don’t own her. She doesn’t want to date you,  _ get it through your pathetic head _ .”

 

“That’s funny coming from you, Nagachika,” Kinomoto said with a malicious grin. “After you’ve been sulking all week because your  _ boyfriend  _ over there broke up with you-”

 

Hide flew at him. It didn’t matter that Kinomoto was twice his size, he grabbed him by the collar of his shirt so hard that it ripped and set him off balance.

 

“What the-” Kinomoto grunted as he fell to floor with a thud. 

 

The class erupted into chaos. Hide barely noticed as he moved to leap onto Kinomoto and punch him while he was down. 

 

Suddenly he felt arms around his waist, catching him part way through leaping on Kinomoto. 

 

“Hide,  _ stop _ !” Kaneki said, tightening his hold on Hide’s waist. “He’s not worth it!”

 

Hide’s instinct was to elbow his captor in the ribs and break free, but he couldn’t do that to Kaneki. He had no choice but to stop and stand there, staring down at Kinomoto, breathing heavily. 

 

Kaneki’s hold lingered until he was sure Hide would not snap again. Kinomoto remained on the ground, and they stood there in a moment in dead silence until someone, who had stuck their head out of the door shouted “The teacher is coming!”

 

Everyone scrambled to get to their seats and make it look like nothing happened. Kaneki finally removed himself from Hide’s waist and everyone jumped into their seats. Kinomoto got up, oddly calm as he rearranged the ripped collar on his shirt to make the damage less obvious. 

 

He passed by Hide, who remained standing defiantly even though he could see Kaneki gesturing at him frantically to sit down out of the corner of his eye.

 

Kinomoto bent down close to Hide’s ear and mumbled, “You’re fucking dead, Nagachika.”

 

Well, that much wasn’t surprising. Hide didn’t say anything, and finally sat down heavily in his seat just as a teacher walked through the door. 

 

It was, thankfully, not Ueda-sensei. If it had been they would have all been doomed. It was their somewhat spacey history teacher. 

 

“What is going on in here?” he demanded. 

 

“What do you mean?” Kimiko asked innocently, the boldest of them all. She did a pretty good job of acting innocent, the only thing that gave her away was the unnatural, guilty silence in the room. 

 

“I heard shouting from down the hall,” he said, narrowing his eyes. 

 

“Sorry,” she said, looking appropriately apologetic and embarrassed. “We were getting a little excited in here.”

 

He did not look convinced, but there was no evidence of damage or wrongdoing, so he had not choice but to give up. 

 

“Try to act more appropriately, just because it’s break doesn’t mean you don’t have to. You’re all second-years, you should know better.”

 

There was a chorus of “sorrys” from the room and he left looking disgruntled. The class sat in silence for another moment, wondering if another fight would break out. Kinomoto got up from his desk and the tension mounted, but all he did was leave the class. Hide remained resolutely at his desk and refused to even glance in Kinomoto’s direction. 

 

Eventually, the classroom chatter returned. Though everyone still seemed a little tense. Hide caught snippets of conversation, whispers of “What the hell has gotten into Nagachika lately?”, but no one seemed inclined to ask him directly. He brought out his notebook and pretended to do work to discourage people (Kaneki) from talking to him. 

 

Kinomoto was going to kick his ass. That much was certain. Usually, Hide would have already started on about five different plans to avoid this situation, but his mind was oddly blank. 

 

At the end of the day Hide was the first to leave the class, unaware of his surroundings even though he really should have been on guard. 

 

He didn’t even notice that Kaneki was chasing after him until he was putting his shoes on. 

 

“Hide!” Kaneki was panting, clutching at his side. “Couldn’t you have slowed down?”

 

“I didn’t see you,” Hide said. 

 

They had rushed out of the class so quickly that there was almost no one else in the room with the shoe lockers Hide turned to face Kaneki, who was biting his lip, looking like he was on the verge of saying something. 

 

“Hide,” he said finally. “Why would you...Kinomoto is a lot bigger than you.”

 

“So?”

 

“ _ So _ ,” Kaneki bit out. “You’re… he’s seriously angry, Hide. And not his normal angry. He’s really going to hurt you.”

 

“You think I don’t know that?” Hide said testily. 

 

“Well, then what are we going to do about it?” Kaneki demanded. 

 

Hide ignored the way his heart tugged at the word “we”. 

 

“What is there to do?” Hide said. 

 

“Tell a teacher, at least!” 

 

Hide’s laugh was hollow. 

 

“And when he finds out I told on him? Plus, I was technically the one that attacked first, I’ll probably get into more trouble than him.”

 

“You have to do  _ something _ !” When Hide didn’t respond, Kaneki sighed and said, “Why did you react like that?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Kaneki, Hide noticed, was looking anywhere but at Hide’s face as he said, “When he, you know, made that joke about me being your boyfriend or whatever. Why would you hit him? It was just a stupid joke, you know how he is…” 

 

Hide’s breath caught in his throat. “What do you mean?”

 

“I just mean… why couldn’t you just ignore him?”

 

“Why did you hold me back?” Hide said. 

 

“I was trying to stop you from getting hurt!” Kaneki said finally raising his voice. 

 

“I don’t see how it’s any of your business anymore,” Hide countered. “I thought you weren’t talking to me?”

 

Kaneki’s jaw clenched. 

 

“Fine,” he said. He strode over to get his own shoes, and gathered his things without looking at Hide. He turned to go, but before he did he looked back at Hide and said, his voice breaking just a little, “What is the matter with you?”

 

Hide said nothing. And Kaneki only looked at him for a moment longer before he turned and walked away. 

 

The question echoed in Hide’s head as he walked home. What scared him the most was that he didn’t know what was the matter with him. He didn’t know why he was so angry. He didn’t know why he had hit Kinomoto. 

 

But if he was being honest with himself. He did know. Because even though it was just to stop him from doing something stupid, Kaneki’s arms had felt nice around his waist. And he could still feel it even now, and tears pricked at his eyes because he knew Kaneki would never, never want him the same way Hide wanted him. 

 

If he ever wanted him again at all. 


End file.
